On Wednesday, when attorneys argued in court over Missouri’s congressional maps, they drew on a 1997 Disney movie that may have seemed out of place in the halls of justice—but only to those who haven’t been paying attention to state politics this fall.
The movie, Air Bud, features hoops-loving dog Buddy, who becomes a junior high school basketball team’s mascot—but when, in classic Hollywood fashion, injuries leave the team without a fifth player, all eyes turn to the golden retriever. The refs swiftly overrule any objections: “Ain’t no rule that says dogs can’t play basketball!”
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The refs’ decision is now the one that Republicans want the judicial system to render. Democrats cried foul when they drew new congressional maps this fall at the Trump administration’s behest, because the Missouri Constitution says that new maps are to be drawn after the Census, which won’t be for five more years. Democrats say that means you can’t just draw new maps outside that cycle. Republicans say, well, “Ain’t no rule that says you can’t!”
The analogy works great. What’s funny is seeing it being adopted by both sides, in the Missouri Capitol, in the media, and now in the courthouse.
The person who’s done more than anyone to popularize the “Air Bud rule” is St. Louis Public Radio political correspondent Jason Rosenbaum. His story in September notes that Rep. Mark Boyko (D-Kirkwood) mentioned Air Bud on the House floor, with a narrative that leans heavily into the reference, including a video clip, as well as Rosenbaum asking Secretary of State Denny Hoskins about whether the rule was on point. Hoskins conceded that it was. “I guess it could be an example of a real-world example of the Air Bud rule, and maybe that’s what they should call this congressional redistricting: the Air Bud clause,” he told Rosenbaum.
Rosenbaum then brought up Air Bud in an interview with the state’s new attorney general, Catherine Hanaway—and wisely packaged their deadpan exchange for TikTok. “It’s not a bad analogy,” Hanaway said. “That is the argument. … I don’t know what happened to Bud. I’m guessing he probably didn’t get to play basketball, since you’re using that analogy, but I think our chances of prevailing are pretty good.”
Replied Rosenbaum, “Well, I have some good news for you, Madam Attorney General. Not only did Buddy get to play basketball, he also got to play football in the classic film Air Bud: Golden Receiver.”
“Man, I have missed a whole genre I’ve really got to catch up on,” said Hanaway.
But the pinnacle for fans of the Air Bud analogy came Wednesday, when Chuck Hatfield, a lawyer for the Democrats seeking to block the new maps, whipped it out in court. “There’s a famous scene where the referee says, ‘Ain’t no rule says a dog can’t play basketball,’ and they allow the dog to play. It’s farcical, and it’s kind of ridiculous,” Hatfield said in the hearing, according to STLPR. “We don’t do Air Bud rules in Missouri for very good reason, but that’s essentially what the argument is from the state.”
Reached by phone yesterday, Hatfield denied being influenced by Rosenbaum’s TikTok oeuvre, saying he’d instead picked up on Boyko’s reference on the House floor. Of the Air Bud analogy, he said, “I think it’s a good one. I mean, everybody’s searching for an analogy.”
He says he looked up Air Bud clips on YouTube to get the quote right, but his research did not extend to watching the entire movie. “I have children who are in their 20s, and they have cited Air Bud rules,” he says. “Ten years ago, I believe that I once started to watch the movie and found it so ridiculous, I didn’t make it through.”
As for Rosenbaum, he says he was thrilled to see the analogy he helped popularize make its way to court.
He is not, however, hoping that the attention leads to a surge of interest in Air Bud. “I did not actually like Air Bud,” he says. “I think I was more enamored with the rule than I was with the movie, because even by the standards of kids’ movies, I always thought it was, like, a C-minus movie.”
